


January Hymn

by vands88



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Depression, Episode Related, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Other, Post-Episode: s02e08 Spacewalker, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands88/pseuds/vands88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Bellamy's birthday and he's had enough of Raven hiding away in the Ark, so begrudgingly, Bellamy, Raven and Clarke set out on a hike in the hope that they might finally resolve their differences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	January Hymn

**Author's Note:**

> This is totally about to be jossed by the new episode so, set roughly in the same universe as [No More](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2803856), a month or two after the events of Spacewalker, where basically our awesome trio are still treading on glass around each other.
> 
> (also, I don't think we know when Bellamy's birthday is, or what season it's meant to be, for that matter, but I have a very lax approach to canon so if it's wrong, I apologise) 
> 
> Title from the Decemberists. 
> 
> Not proof-read or beta'd, sorry, but wanted it done before the new episode.

There was no reason to keep track of months on the Ark. They could have made a new, more logical, system of time. But they didn’t. They kept the hours, and the days, and the months, and the years. The rotation of the Sun made little difference to the hunk of metal in the sky. There were no seasons in space. Bellamy never had to know the difference between June and December until they started growing crops on the Ground, then it mattered.

He wakes to the dark, but he knows it is morning. Early morning. He can hear the first stirrings of Camp Jaha around him. A spotlight from the tower filters through the grey fabric of his tent. He stares at it for a while, willing himself to get up. There is something depressing in the knowledge that even when the sun has risen, the sight will be much the same. The skies have been nothing but grey recently. It’s early January. It’s cold. It is - he realises with the same factual mundanity - his birthday today.

He shivers under his blanket. Raven had found him a thicker blanket for winter, a patchwork made from fur rather than disused clothing, because, “if you’re going to be stubborn enough to sleep out here, then I’m at least going to make sure you don’t freeze to death,” but it was still chilly enough that he’d spent half the night shivering too much to sleep. The hardest part in getting up was knowing it would be colder still.

No, he realises. That is not the hardest part. No one watches him suffer through the nights and early mornings. The hardest part is when they do see; when they look to him to give guidance, silently ask him to fight against the Chancellor, to give voice to what remains of their hundred, the hardest part is when Clarke looks to him and he has to act like there’s nothing wrong.

There’s a scuffling outside his tent and he knows even before she speaks that it’s Clarke. “Bellamy?” she whispers, “Are you awake?”

He fights the childish urge to feign sleep, but it tempts him for longer than he ought to admit to. He sighs and lets himself dissipate with the breath, watching the condensation disappear into the winter air. He straightens, and is replaced almost immediately by the persona they all know; the confident leader ready to fight whatever battle Clarke needs fighting today. “I’m awake,” he says simply.

He waits for Clarke to come in before pushing the blanket from his shoulders and sitting up. He’s wrapped in layers of clothes, he has to be this time of year, but he can’t help but remember the way her eyes looked the first time she saw him like this, topless, and with a girl either side of him. A different man.

“They don’t understand why we do it,” she says without preamble.

Bellamy must still be tired, he can normally keep up even when she’s twenty paces ahead. He clears his throat. “What?”

“Why we sleep in tents, not the Ark.”

Bellamy shrugs, and the blanket falls further, exposing more to the bitter chill. “There’s not enough space in there.”

Clarke shakes her head amused, a smile peeking out from under her hair. “They say there is, but I’m starting to think we have different definitions of space.”

Bellamy huffs. “Sounds about right.” Their hundred got used to having a whole forest to themselves - well, themselves and the Grounders - it felt wrong being encased by four walls of metal again, and he knows it reminds Clarke of Mount Weather, though she doesn’t talk about it. “They don’t know any different though.”

“Neither did we.”

Bellamy smirks. “Well, I still think Raven’s crazy for staying with them.”

And that was it, wasn’t it?  It was still ‘them’ and ‘us’, and although it was just a place to sleep, Bellamy couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed by it. Octavia had left for Lincoln’s village, she’d be back in a few days, and although those from Mount Weather had returned, they came back as different people, and Bellamy imagines that they felt they returned to a camp full of different people too. They hadn’t watched Clarke kill Finn. They hadn’t seen Murphy’s transformation. They hadn’t been surrounded by the lights of the Grounders knowing they could be one step away from annihilation. They were still Bellamy’s people, but there was rift of experiences that separated them. In its place, those that shared those experiences became family, Clarke and Raven, and while Clarke was still beside him, almost every day it seemed, Raven had disappeared since Finn died, wandering the Ark somewhere with her gadgets and her lab and her Wick.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “What did you want, Clarke? I’m pretty sure you didn’t come here to talk about the Ark.”

“We’ve been asked to go on a scouting mission by the Chancellor. We still know the land better than they do and we need more places to plant crops come Spring, hopefully somewhere flat and near a water source.”

Bellamy nods. It sounds reasonable, and he has an idea of where to start. “Just me and you?”

Clarke furrows her eyebrows. For a moment, he thought she looked offended by the idea, but her face settles and her voice is mild when she asks, “Why?”

Bellamy looks to the side, tries to make it sound like it’s not important, but his heart is a tratorious thing, clenching painful in his chest. “Maybe Raven can help? She probably got bored and put together a compass, or a bomb, or something.”

Clarke’s laugh focuses his attention on her once more. He really doesn’t see her laugh enough. “Because nothing helps a scouting mission like a bomb.”

“You never know.”

It’s a lie and they both know it, but once they’re dressed and sun is just rising, they go to Raven’s quarters. He’s nervous as he walks down the metal corridors. He only spoke to her yesterday, but he can’t remember the last time they actually talked. The idea of spending a whole day in the wilderness with no escape from each others company is both exciting and terrifying. He almost begs Clarke to reconsider several times on their way, but something stops him from speaking. Her steps falter a couple of times enroute as if she’s also doubting the wisdom of their plan, but they keep walking. Bellamy ensures that his strides are as long and confident as expected, his gun ever holstered on his shoulder.

They find her hunched over a piece of junk in the lab, Bellamy can’t see how the tangle of wires and metal could be anything other than junk, but he knows Raven would claim otherwise. She’ll probably transform it into something that no one else has even realised they need yet. For the first time, Bellamy wonders if she made his winter blanket. He always assumed she bought or traded it, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she could skin and sew, only surprised if she invested so much effort in something just to keep him warm.

Bellamy clears his throat to make their presence known. Raven looks up, the constant grin on her face, that looks even more fake than Bellamy feels. They all needed a goddamn day off.

“Hey!” she says, spinning round on her stool, “What can I do for the dynamic duo today?”

Bellamy exchanges a look with Clarke, and Clarke loses their silent argument, and explains to Raven, “We’re going on a scouting mission. Thought you could help.”

That’s not how Bellamy would have phrased it, but Clarke’s the most diplomatic person he knows, he’ll trust her on this one.

Raven looks confused, before it’s quickly hidden under a smirk. “Sure. That’s what you need. A cripple holding you up.”

Bellamy cringes instinctively, he hates it when Raven calls herself that, it feels as if she’s reducing all her brilliance by focusing on one flaw. There are a hundred ways he would describe Raven Reyes before commenting on her leg. He also hates that Raven sees his reaction, and returns to tinkering with her experiment with a face full of bitterness.

“That’s not why we need you, and you know it,” Clarke says.  

Raven drops a spanner on the worktop with far more force than necessary. The harsh sound of metal against metal vibrates across the room until Bellamy can feel it crawling up his spine. Raven’s confident smile has been replaced with the defiant glare that Bellamy once knew so well.

“No,,” Raven says, “what you need, is a new passage out of camp, or to sneak you more guns, or to make your every whim out of broken bits of ship,” she exclaims, holding up her experiment and throwing it back down, “Has it occured to you that I might be getting sick of playing this game? That I might want to leave this fucking metal craphole just…” her voice falls, as she picks at the edge of the desk, “just….”

Bellamy wants to comfort her, wants to do something other than stand there silently, but finds he can’t. Have they really been so cruel to Raven? She was the one that left them.

“Raven,” Clarke says softly, “I should have been clearer. We don’t need you to build us anything, but you won’t be holding us up either.” She exchanges a look with Bellamy, who nods minutely in agreement, there’s no point in playing games, “Actually, we, erm, we don’t need your help at all. We’re just asking if you want to come with us - “ Clarke breaks off, as if there’s something more she wants to say but can’t find the words.

Bellamy can though: “We miss you,” he says meekly.

There’s a clamour from the other side of the lab. Bellamy didn’t realise they had company, but now a flustered Wick is picking up broken pieces of metal from the floor and pretending not to listen. Bellamy does him the favour of pretending not to notice.

Clarke and Raven are staring at each other in a battle of wills. This could go either way. Either Raven declines, they pretend they didn’t see her facade slip, allow her to keep hiding in this lab with Wick and her grief, or, they win, and maybe, the three of them, away from the pressure of the camp, could actually find a way to let their defenses fall and their friendships reform. Raven’s fingers come up to play with the charm around her neck, her index finger resting between the wings of the bird. Her eyes flicker to Bellamy’s. “Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?” Bellamy counters.

Raven slips off her stool and grabs her crutches from beside her. She nods to herself before speaking, as if assuring herself she’s making the right decision, “I guess not.”

Bellamy still doesn’t know if it was the right decision even as they set off from camp towards the forest. He had oversimplified things before. Even if they do manage to make things right, they need to manage to talk to each other first. He thinks he’s forgotten how to make small talk. But, then again, maybe small talk isn’t what they need.

He begins to walk towards a lake he remembers wanting to show Raven, it’s a few miles to the east and was surrounded by flowers when he saw it last. He wonders if any flowers grow in January. The gun weighs heavy on his back, but after a few minutes, the cold begins to leave his bones, and there is a comforting rhythm to the crunch of boots on leaves and the inhaling and exhaling of winter’s air. Their pace is slow. Raven decided to leave her crutches at camp, but it means every time they reach uneven terrain, she has to slow down and pick her way through the best path. Bellamy held his hand out to help her the first two times, but she didn’t accept it, only glared, and by the third time, he’d learnt not to even offer.

The only talking comes from Clarke. She must hate the silence even more than he does because the things she are saying are beyond trivial. Things like, “Wasn’t there a tree like this near the Dropship?” and “We should keep an eye out for herbs while we’re out here.”

Bellamy manages a grunt in reply, but in truth, he can feel his facade slipping. Why are they even out here? He could have sent Clarke out here alone and spent the day quietly, blissfully, alone, hiding away in his tent away from his problems and his people.

“So…” Raven says after a mile of travelling, “This is awkward.”

Bellamy smirks and sees out of the corner of his eyes, Clarke’s mouth quirking in amusement too.

Bellamy pauses, looking back at Raven. “Maybe you should start talking then,” Bellamy challenges: if she takes it as an insult, then Raven doesn’t want this fixed, but if she takes the verbal sparring match for what it is and fights back, just like in the old days, then they might have a chance.

“I don’t see why I should be the one to start talking when Mister Caveman over here has yet to do anything but grunt at us this entire journey,” she says, elbowing past Bellamy to exchange a look at Clarke.

Bellamy tries not to look too pleased with her response, but Clarke fails, a grin - wider than Bellamy’s seen it for months - plastered on her face. “Oh, you get used to it,” Clarke says, “He’s been regressing for months now. Caveman Bellamy. I’m lucky if I can get him to do anything but glare and beat something with a stick.”

“Hey!” Bellamy says, affronted, but he does realise he’s been slouching and visibly straightens up. “I’m right here, you know.”

“Are you now,” Clarke whispers to ground, but it’s loud enough that they all hear it.

The awkwardness falls over them again, but Bellamy’s had enough. “Fine. I’m sorry I’ve been… uncommunicative recently. Alright?”

Raven looks up into the canopy of trees and Bellamy watches as she closes her eyes and exhales slowly. “It’s okay,” she says, “We’ve all been…”

“It’s been hard,” Clarke finishes for her.

“Yeah,” Raven agrees, opening her eyes once more. “Honestly, I thought I was better off being useful on the Ark, thought you might want your space or whatever.”

Bellamy assumed she was talking to Clarke, because after what happened with Finn, Clarke spent a couple of days, alone, and silent, but when Raven finishes speaking, her eyes fall on where the two of them stand together.

Clarke gets there first, because of course she does. “You thought… you thought Bellamy and I were… together?”

Raven looks between them with furrowed eyebrows. “You mean, you’re still not? Are you kidding me? Out there in the tents all by yourself, and you haven’t…?” She looks genuinely surprised.

Bellamy can feel heat crawl up his cheeks. It’s not that he’s not interested in Clarke, there’s always been a pull, but there’s always also been something in the way of that pull. Besides, he hasn’t felt the urge to be close to someone in that way since he closed the eyelids of the last girl that chose to be with him. It’s difficult enough on the Ground without distractions.

There are several abandoned sentences between them before Raven finally utters the name that has been hanging unspoken in the air for weeks. “Is it… Finn?”

Bellamy watches Clarke’s face carefully, but her expression gives away nothing. She bites on her lip, and then, finally asks, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” Bellamy says.

They turn to him, as if they actually forgot he was there.

He elaborates. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“I can’t, okay?” Clarke says. “Not right now. We need to get to the lake.” She turns on her heel and starts striding through the forest.

Bellamy turns to Raven with a shrug and they let Clarke have her space, tailing her a fair distance behind.

“It’s been hard for Clarke,” Bellamy whispers, “she wants to talk to you, I know it, but it might take a while for her to forgive herself enough to ask others for forgiveness.”

Raven shakes her head with a smile and mutters something about “stubborn idiots”. Raven raises her voice, enough that even Clarke might hear, “There’s nothing to forgive. Clarke did what she had to do. I’m sad that Finn died, but I’m not angry at Clarke for making that choice. I know it didn’t come across like that…” she winces, “But... I’m okay. It was an impossible choice.  Clarke just needs to forgive herself.” Raven huffs. “I must’ve played it out in my head a thousand times but Clarke’s smart, she knew there wasn’t a way out, that he… she knew… I don’t want to think about what the Grounders would have done if Clarke hadn’t… so, it’s fine.”

“If you’re not mad, then why did you leave?”

Raven shrugs. “Told you. Space. And the fact that you’re crazy. It’s freezing outside, I don’t know why you do it.”

“Got used to it. And your blanket helps.”

Bellamy can see Raven’s usual admonishments form on her lips but she fights them with a roll of her eyes.

“You know, we, er,” Bellamy shifts the gun slung over his back, as if to give him confidence, but it does nothing of the sort, “If you changed your mind. It would be fine. You’d be… welcome.”

“‘Welcome in Bellamy’s tent,’” Raven mocks, but he can tell underneath she’s secretly pleased. “The Ark will talk.”

Bellamy laughs. “Whatever. It’s an open offer. You, me, Clarke, we’re family now, alright? We’ll fix this.”

The small smile Raven gives him, as they catch up to Clarke, is worth every moment of awkwardness they’ve had on the way. They walk for a while longer, and Bellamy makes sure he gives Raven and Clarke their space when it looks like they’re making progress, instead hanging back and pretending to be interested in tree moss. 

By the time the sun is high in the sky, Bellamy can hear Clarke and Raven’s laughter echoing through the forest, and he feels his dark mood begin to lift. He catches up to them, and is surprised to hear them talking about school games. There was one on the Ark where they drew circles with chalk on the ground and had to jump only in certain ones. He remembers the girls in his school doing it, how he memorised the game, and then went home and taught Octavia how to play. He could tell them this, but the sound of them conversing and sharing laughter is too precious to interrupt, he just walks beside them, commenting occasionally and trying to mask the smile that is pulling at his lips.

Clarke does get distracted by herbs for medicine, as Bellamy knew she would, and darts towards a bush of berries that are apparently useful. He watches her slide down a bank to get to them, and she brushes herself off before starting to stash plants in her rucksack.

Bellamy shouts down after her, “You need a hand?”

“No, I’m good!” she calls back.

“You wouldn’t get me down there anyway,” Raven sighs, hovering at the edge of the incline and looking downwards.

Bellamy says, “You’d find a way if you had to, but right now, I figure we’re okay to let our Princess get her hands dirty.” 

“Yeah, she does that,” Raven says with a bitter smile. “Always for the good of the rest of us though.”

Bellamy watches as her smile shifts into one of kindness. They had made progress then. “Did you talk?”

Raven nods. “I think I really hurt her feelings when I lashed out at her… _after_. I didn’t realise. I was too wrapped up in my own pain to realise that she was hurting too. And you…”

Bellamy’s head snaps towards Raven, where he had been looking down in the valley. “I’m fine,” he says, automatically.

Raven shakes her head sadly. “No, you’re not. I was joking around earlier, but Clarke says you really have been acting differently. She thinks you might be... “

Bellamy pins her down with a gaze. He’s been doing well to ignore it, putting a name to the darkness would only make it real. _Don’t say it_ , he begs her with his eyes.

Clarke scrambles up the hill before Raven can speak, and Bellamy offers her his hand to help, she grasps it willingly, and pulls her to the top of the hill.

“Did you get what you need?” he asks her.

She nods, and when she blinks downwards, he realises that he is still holding her hand. He lets her go, reluctantly.

The lake is as beautiful as he remembers it. It stretches out across the valley; sleepy and frosty. A few small white flowers scatter the shoreline.

“Wow,” Clarke breathes beside him, and he feels himself agreeing. It’s a beautiful sight. “When did you find this?”

“A few months back,” he says, leading them through the reeds towards the water. “I took a detour on the way back from Lincoln’s camp.”

Raven elbows him, “And you’ve been holding back on us?”

He shrugs, “Figured it was too far from camp to be any good.”

“Maybe,” Clarke muses, “but it’s… nice. Thank you.”

She leans into him to show her thanks and he soaks up the warmth eagerly, putting an arm around her. It hasn’t felt right recently to be this close to Clarke but in the countryside, with Raven beside them, it does finally, maybe perhaps because Raven should have been there along. Shyly, he reaches out his other hand to find Raven’s. She looks across at him inquisitively, but takes his hand and tangles their fingers together.

He sighs, finally feeling at peace. He knows things between Clarke and Raven won’t be easily solved, but it’s easy to pretend at the stillness of the lake that he might get his happy ending after all.

Clarke breaks away, “Oh, I nearly forgot!” she exclaims, shrugging off her rucksack. She bends down to riffle through it. “It’s here somewhere…”

Bellamy’s distracted by Raven, swaying on her feet slightly. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she admits.

Wordlessly, Clarke hands Bellamy her blanket (the matching one from Raven) from her rucksack, and he leads Raven towards a large protruding stone that they can lean against. He tucks the blanket around them, protecting Raven from the cold stone, frozen ground, and brittle air, and puts his gun behind him. By the time he’s finished, Clarke is walking towards them, victoriously holding out a wooden box.

“What’s this?” he asks, as she pushes it into his hands. 

She lifts up the blanket and snuggles up beside Bellamy. They’re all so close, he can feel Raven and Clarke’s knees touching beside his. The girls smile at each other, then Clarke blushes slightly and looks back towards the lake. Maybe they really have reached an understanding. “It’s your birthday present,” she says. 

Bellamy’s mouth falls open in surprise. “You knew?”

“Of course we knew!” Raven exclaims, and he turns to look at her instead, “I’m not usually so easy to drag out of the lab, y’know, especially to traipse through the woods with two people I thought weren’t talking to me.”

Bellamy smirks, “I appreciate it.”

Raven shrugs. “It was your birthday, and I was cornered by the both of you, it’s not like I could’ve said no,” she says, although they all know otherwise. Raven never goes anything she doesn’t want to do.

“Thank you,” he whispers into her hairline. She blushes and rests her head on his shoulder.

Bellamy turns the box over in his hands. It’s small. About the size of a coaster and as deep as his first knuckle.

“What is it?” Raven asks.

Bellamy slides off the lid to reveal a string bracelet with wooden charms. He carefully pulls it out, holding it to the light and admires each carving in turn. “Did you make this?” he asks Clarke.

She nods, and reaches to guide his hand to the first charm. “This is the Ark, where we came from.”

He smiles in awe as he noticing the little details carved into the small ring of wood.

“And this,” she says, moving his hand to the next charm, “Is the Earth.”

“Oh!” Raven says, spotting the next charm, brushing past their hands to turn to the next one, “And that’s your tent, you stubborn little…”

Bellamy elbows her. Clarke laughs.

“What’s this one?” he asks Clarke as he studies the one that looks like an infinity symbol.

“It’s both an eight, and infinity. I thought it might remind you of Octavia, when she’s not here.” 

Bellamy strokes it with his thumb and smiles. It’s the sweetest thing. “And I have the bracelet to remind me of you. Thank you,” he says and his heart aches with the kindness.

Raven shifts beside him, and he realises, Clarke hadn’t included Raven. Of course she hadn’t, they had been fighting until today. He’s about to reach out and comfort her when Clarke does it for her, their hands pressing together over Bellamy’s lap. He assumes its just in comfort until Raven’s hand comes up from under the blanket with a wooden raven in her hand. Unlike the one from Finn that Raven still wears, it’s posed more like a child’s painting of a bird, a cylinder with two wings; a bird in flight. 

“I thought… you might want to,” Clarke says, “But it’s up to you.”

“It’s beautiful,” Raven whispers, “I can’t believe you -”

Bellamy just tilts his head towards the sky and smiles. The sky is beginning to clear to blue. After months of loneliness, his heart is stretched to bursting with their love. 

“Thank you,” Bellamy and Raven say in unison to Clarke.

They all laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. When they recover, Raven hands the wooden bird to Bellamy, and it must be the giddiness that makes him so daring, but as he clasps his hand over hers, he leans forward to kiss her. It’s intended to be a simple peck, but she responds by pulling him in and holding the kiss until they have to break for air. He hears Clarke laugh behind him, and his anxiety over her reaction eases.

He pulls back, still breathless and laughing, and reaches for the piece of string that Clarke is holding out. It takes him a minute to remember the charm still in his palm, so Clarke reaches over and loops the string through the hole in the wing and attaches it to the bracelet.

“Thank you,” he says, watching her at work.

“Not done yet,” she says, pulling out some nail scissors to dispose of the extra string. Then she picks up the completed bracelet and holds it out expectantly. 

He gives her his hand and she ties the string around his wrist, trimming the string again once it’s tied. She goes to pull her hand away from his when he clutches her forearm and smirks, “Not done yet.”

She smiles in that way of rosy cheeks and crinkled eyes that he knows means she’s trying not to laugh. It might be his favourite smile of hers. She surprises him too, by being the one to reach up and claim his lips. He closes his eyes and lets her cradle his face and take the kiss. When she pulls away, her fingers trace his cheek. “Happy birthday, Bellamy,” she says, but her eyes are serious as they stare into his. He knows how to read her by now. She’s saying how grateful she is that he’s happy. He’s grateful for it too.

She pulls away and he smiles, his heart aching with it, and he watches happily as Clarke and Raven smile shyly and hold hands over the blanket.

He turns the string bracelet around his wrist; a new way to count his blessings, and leans back, watching the birds fly over the thawing lake.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr [here](http://vands88.tumblr.com/) if that's your thing. 
> 
> (& for those who are keeping tabs, I haven't forgotten about the Jem POV In The Flesh F/F fic but I kinda got distracted by a surprisingly complex Natasha POV MCU poly fic, hopefully you'll see both before the month is through but no promises because life keeps happening)


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